Weight gain and how to lose it!

[rubyred]

Hi all,

Since i've had to stop attending the gym and attending dance classed, my weight has piled on :( I've probably put on 3 stone (about 40lbs) in the past 18 months.

The trouble is no matter what I eat goes straight to my waist as I simply cannot exercise to burn it all off. I try and swim once or twice a week but it doesn't seem to be enough.

Obviously the excess weight isn't helping my pain and I desperately do no want to gain anymore :(

Has this happened to anyone else and/or could give me some advice on what to do?

Michelle xx

[Woodstock Hippy]

Red, I gained about 20lbs from May when my hips finally gave up ending all training to November with my surgery and January when I had to put a stop to it.  February 1, I started using the MyFitnessPal app to track calories in vs calories out and by May I was back to 167lbs, right where I want to be.  Give it a try

[hernanu]

Hi Michelle, that did happen with me. I was very fit, doing a lot of athletics and eating sort of right, adhering to what I thought was the right way to eat with not a lot of thought put into it. My active life kept me within reasonable weight bounds.

When the OA hit, I still kept up my activities (soccer, basketball, martial arts, weights, etc.) and thought that would be fine, but the weight started to pile on. I am not a small guy anyways so my frame hid the increase in weight until I could not deny it.

I was perplexed, since I was still doing all of the things as before, even more in some cases - I added a fitness boot camp as a misguided way to 'fix' my hip, which I thought was just muscular tightness issues. One thing that all of my teammates in the different sports noticed was that I was getting slower.

In my mind, I still was moving as quickly, but I think in all of my activities I started to slow down without thinking to avoid the increasing pain. I also started to get much more sedentary in my regular life. I owned a beauty spa with my ex-wife (wife then), and spent a lot of time doing carpentry, painting, climbing ladders, etc. Not the usual fare for a computer engineer during off hours. This became worse and I found myself avoiding doing work that I thought nothing of before.

All of this, plus my turning to food for comfort when the OA became my daily companion put more and more weight on. This of course made matters worse, since more stress was being put on my increasingly deteriorating hips. It's a vicious spiral.

After the surgeries, I lost some weight, but labored to do so, and to tell the truth it was a lower priority to recuperating as well as possible and surviving a divorce. In due time, the hips became better and the divorce came to its uniquely ugly end, but some rays of sunshine came in. I was no longer in this huge pain for many reasons, and life looked better.

I was still overweight, though and finally, when about a year+ on both hips came about, I got motivated. I was not eating overmuch, but the weight refused to come off. This was alarming to me, since I wanted so much to improve in every way. I also wanted to give the hips a fighting chance to go long term.

So I started looking around for something that worked and made sense without being idiotic about it. The fact is that my ex-wife was a weight loss junkie, and tried many plans without any result. The only sure result was that (since she insisted I join each to give her support) with every plan that we tried, I put on 5 pounds. It was almost automatic - sign a check for the fees and 5 pounds of gristle fell directly on me and attached itself.  She did go on one after we separated, that worked. For her it included hypnosis and use of a new diet. It is called by many names - paleo diet, prime diet - I prefer 'caveman diet', since it plays to my instincts.

It is basically a diet that is different from the way most western cultures eat, based on not eating any sugars, fake sugars or anything that if consumed by the body would produce sugars. The idea being that introducing sugars into yourself is like building a superhighway to obesity.

Using this process, my ex-wife, my daughter, my sister and her husband (another hippy) each lost a large percentage of weight. I decided to go on it, but didn't want to pay an exhorbitant fee for the hypnosis. A post here pointed me to "Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution" book, http://www.drgundry.com/ which I've used to drop 40 lbs (18.3 kg?) so far since February. I am still losing weight on a weekly basis, with my goal being a trim 220 lbs (99.7 kg). I had an assessment done of my non-fat content and it is about 200 lbs (90.72kg), so my doctor and I agreed on that as a target for me with 10% body fat.

I believe it is a healthy way to lose weight and to live from that point on, but it requires a large change in eating style. The focus on sugars means that some of my most favorite foods are gone or deeply reduced in my diet. The book has been easy to use, but does require me to forego anything sugared (easy for me), fake sugared (harder) diet sodas, 'light' ice creams, etc., anything that is a direct source of sugar (much harder) like fruits and fruit juices, and the hardest of all - anything that is an indirect source of sugars from grains. So bread, pasta, rice, beer, potatoes, etc.

I've kept mostly to the diet, with occasional planned slippage. The most frequent miscue has been with beer. You can still drink alcohol, but only red wine and clear alcohols (gin, vodka) in reasonable amounts. I still drink beer, but keep it measured and will frequently substitute wine or spirits. The lack of some vitamins is made up in my case by ingesting multiple vitamins every day, which has helped. I am not starving by any means and am happy with the results.

I've kept my doctor informed about my diet, and she is guardedly happy about the results, she mistrusts fad diets, but this seems to take the weight off an keep it off.

So hope that helps, it does require changes, but I find that I feel better and it works for me.

[stephen1254]

It is difficult without exercise to keep your metabolism up, but two things that might help are eating 6 times a day, instead of a few meals a day, and eating protein with every meal. The former keeps your blood sugar at a more even keel and the latter forces your body to burn more calories for digestion than with either fats or carbs.

[Tin Soldier]

When I couldn't ride my bike or play soccer, or even run, I didn't gain much weight but I could tell my health was deteriorating.  Poor mood, high BP, and slight tire and back fat around the middle.  I still packed in the calories, though.  I think maybe I just have a high metabolism.  It's pretty crappy to not be able to do exercise like you want to and the hips are such a major part of most types of exercise.  Swimming is probably one of the better ones just because the hip (at least in the crawl) is not extended much.  Breast stroke kick might be nasty on the hip, depending on how hard you kick.

[bilateralbliss]

Hi Michelle, I know "twoferone" wrote a kinda diary about losing weight, try checking her posts, they were all great reading too :)

ps Does anyone know where she has gone?

[rubyred]

Thanks for all the advice guys.

It definately has to do with 'calories in vs calories out' and i'm definately over eating compared to what I can burn off.

I spoke with my GP about this and her answer was to give me some tablets that will prevent fat from being absorbed into my stomach. The side effects are best not being spoken about!!

[metoo]

One thing that helped me was to cut out coffee and caffeinated beverages.  Coffee would upset my stomach and made me feel hungrier, especially if I drank it outside of meals.    I started drinking more water, both with my meals and at other times.    I am trying to lose a little weight myself which is hard when you are the only one on a diet.  I am not very talkative at meals and I usually finish my meal first because others are busy talking.  It is tough to not take a second helping while waiting for others to finish.

[ZAP]

If its pre surgery, I didn't care..  I new the reasons I was gaining weight so it wasn't a big deal.  I literally started training for surgery about 3 months before..  Elliptical, horizontal bike, and the exercises on this site. I completely changed my diet as if I was training for a big event (surgery)..  Stopped drinking, stayed away from salt, etc. After surgery, I continued to eat properly and wanted my recovery to be perfect so I only put good things in my body. I'm 4 months post surgery, and can workout, jog short distances, etc and still haven't had a slice of pizza or a drink for over 7 months now.  Your body gets use to it.. I lost 40lbs so far since surgery and have now added some treats every now and then, like cookies, or even donuts because I was losing weight to fast.   Remember anything you do for over 21 days is a habit. You just need to get through the first 21 days.  :)

[bilateralbliss]

Excellent example of sense and willpower Zap

[Spanielsal]

My weight crept up over the last 2 years, the hip was grumbling so walks were shorter and less frequent. In january the hip finally went, I was sedentary and the weight really started to increase. The hip continues to deteriorate fast but using the Dukan diet I've managed to lose a stone. I find dieting when combined with the pain and disability of the hip very significantly affects my depression. I'm a keen cook and baker, not celebrating food and not creating yummy things and enjoying them with everyone else makes me very low. But, losing the weight is important to see if it reduces my pain (it hasn't) and to demonstrate to my surgeon that I'm prepared to put the effort in to see if we can avoid surgery that way. The Dukan is hard but it makes sense and if followed properly it reintroduces foods and with a one day a week committment aims to keep that weight off for life.  I'm not sure if I'm strong enough to do it whilst I'm this low, but if the surgeon agrees to operate then I'll be investing in a shorter recovery by sticking with it.

[rubyred]

It's so hard Sal. I can seem to lose a few pounds but my depression effects my appetite badly.

I used to be such an active person... I would kill to get back into running, cycling and dancing again.

[Spanielsal]

Not much longer until we get some more news, Ruby, although I'd the answer is no I'm not sure how I'm going to cope depression wise. I've already decided to stop the diet then unless it's a yes answer in which case I'll be positive working towards the recovery. You will get back there Ruby, it WILL come. Be kind to yourself, don't beat yourself up. The all protein does fill you up, low fat dairy does help bind fat in the bowel and water does increase metabolism by 10% when compared to dehydrated dieters, I might just do this 2 days per week if it's a no as denying yourself doesn't help. Sending hugs, we'll work through this together! Xxx

[bilateralbliss]

Guess it`s a case of everything in moderation girls, I lost a lot of weight before the op due to the pain. Did put some weight on afterwards, started lose it when did the physio etc. It will all even out, don`t give yourselves more pressure x